The Responsibility to Protect: The Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (Responsibility to Protect)

108 Pages·2002·0.76 MB·English

by  ICISS

T h e R e s p o n s i b i l i t y
T o P r o t e c t
december 2001
Report of the
International Commission on Intervention
and State Sovereignty
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III
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON
INTERVENTION AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY
Gareth Evans Mohamed Sahnoun
Co-Chair Co-Chair
Gisèle Côté-Harper
Lee Hamilton
Michael Ignatieff
Vladimir Lukin
Klaus Naumann
Cyril Ramaphosa
Fidel Ramos
Cornelio Sommaruga
Eduardo Stein
Ramesh Thakur
Published by the International Development Research Centre
PO Box 8500, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 3H9
http://www.idrc.ca
©HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF CANADA 2001
as represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs
National Library of Canada cataloguing in publication data
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
The Responsibility to Protect
Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
Issued also in French under title : La responsabilité de protéger.
Issued by the International Development Research Centre.
Accompanied by CD-ROM
ISBN 0-88936-960-7
1. Intervention (International law).
2. Sovereignty.
3. Security, international.
4. United Nations. Security Council.
5. Humanitarian assistance.
I. International Development Research Centre (Canada)
II. Title.
JZ6368.I57 2001 327.1’7 C2001-980327-3
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V
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD............................................................................................................................VII
SYNOPSIS ................................................................................................................................XI
1. THE POLICY CHALLENGE..................................................................................................1
The Intervention Dilemma ..................................................................................................1
The Changing International Environment..........................................................................3
The Implications for State Sovereignty................................................................................7
The Meaning of Intervention................................................................................................8
2. A NEW APPROACH: “THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT” ......................................11
The Meaning of Sovereignty ..............................................................................................12
Human Rights, Human Security and Emerging Practice..................................................14
Shifting the Terms of the Debate ......................................................................................16
3. THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PREVENT..............................................................................19
A Commitment to Prevention............................................................................................19
Early Warning and Analysis................................................................................................21
Root Cause Prevention Efforts ..........................................................................................22
Direct Prevention Efforts....................................................................................................23
4. THE RESPONSIBILITY TO REACT ..................................................................................29
Measures Short of Military Action ....................................................................................29
The Decision to Intervene ..................................................................................................31
Threshold Criteria: Just Cause............................................................................................32
Other Precautionary Criteria..............................................................................................35
5. THE RESPONSIBILITY TO REBUILD..............................................................................39
Post-Intervention Obligations............................................................................................39
Administration under UN Authority ................................................................................43
Local Ownership and the Limits to Occupation..............................................................44
6. THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY....................................................................................47
Sources of Authority under the UN Charter ....................................................................47
The Security Council’s Role – and Responsibility............................................................49
When the Security Council Fails to Act ............................................................................53
VI The Responsibility to Protect
7. THE OPERATIONAL DIMENSION ..................................................................................57
Preventive Operations........................................................................................................57
Planning for Military Intervention....................................................................................58
Carrying Out Military Intervention....................................................................................61
Following Up Military Intervention..................................................................................64
A Doctrine For Human Protection Operations................................................................66
8. THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT: THE WAY FORWARD........................................69
From Analysis to Action ....................................................................................................69
Mobilizing Domestic Political Will....................................................................................70
Mobilizing International Political Will ............................................................................72
Next Steps............................................................................................................................73
Meeting the Challenge........................................................................................................75
APPENDIX A: MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION..............................................................77
APPENDIX B: HOW THE COMMISSION WORKED ..........................................................81
INDEX ......................................................................................................................................87
VII
foreword
This report is about the so-called “right of humanitarian intervention”: the question of
when, if ever, it is appropriate for states to take coercive – and in particular military – action,
against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state. At least
until the horrifying events of 11 September 2001 brought to center stage the international
response to terrorism, the issue of intervention for human protection purposes has been
seen as one of the most controversial and difficult of all international relations questions.
With the end of the Cold War, it became a live issue as never before. Many calls for
intervention have been made over the last decade – some of them answered and some of
them ignored. But there continues to be disagreement as to whether, if there is a right
of intervention, how and when it should be exercised, and under whose authority.
The Policy Challenge
External military intervention for human protection purposes has been controversial both
when it has happened – as in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo – and when it has failed to happen,
as in Rwanda. For some the new activism has been a long overdue internationalization of the
human conscience; for others it has been an alarming breach of an international state order
dependent on the sovereignty of states and the inviolability of their territory. For some, again,
the only real issue is ensuring that coercive interventions are effective; for others, questions
about legality, process and the possible misuse of precedent loom much larger.
NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999 brought the controversy to its most intense head.
Security Council members were divided; the legal justification for military action without new
Security Council authority was asserted but largely unargued; the moral or humanitarian
justification for the action, which on the face of it was much stronger, was clouded by
allegations that the intervention generated more carnage than it averted; and there were many
criticisms of the way in which the NATO allies conducted the operation.
At the United Nations General Assembly in 1999, and again in 2000, Secretary-General Kofi
Annan made compelling pleas to the international community to try to find, once and for all,
a new consensus on how to approach these issues, to “forge unity” around the basic questions
of principle and process involved. He posed the central question starkly and directly:
…if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on
sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica – to gross
and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our
common humanity?
It was in response to this challenge that the Government of Canada, together with a group
of major foundations, announced at the General Assembly in September 2000 the estab-
lishment of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS).
Our Commission was asked to wrestle with the whole range of questions – legal, moral,
operational and political – rolled up in this debate, to consult with the widest possible
range of opinion around the world, and to bring back a report that would help the
Secretary-General and everyone else find some new common ground.
VIII The Responsibility to Protect
The Commission’s Report
The report which we now present has been unanimously agreed by the twelve
Commissioners. Its central theme, reflected in the title, is “The Responsibility to Protect”,
the idea that sovereign states have a responsibility to protect their own citizens from avoid-
able catastrophe – from mass murder and rape, from starvation – but that when they are
unwilling or unable to do so, that responsibility must be borne by the broader community
of states. The nature and dimensions of that responsibility are argued out, as are all the
questions that must be answered about who should exercise it, under whose authority, and
when, where and how. We hope very much that the report will break new ground in a way
that helps generate a new international consensus on these issues. It is desperately needed.
As Co-Chairs we are indebted to our fellow Commissioners for the extraordinary qualities
of knowledge, experience and judgement they brought to the preparation of this report over
a long and gruelling year of meetings. The Commissioners brought many different personal
views to the table, and the report on which we have agreed does not reflect in all respects
the preferred views of any one of them. In particular, some of our members preferred a
wider range of threshold criteria for military intervention than those proposed in our report,
and others a narrower range. Again, some Commissioners preferred more, and others less,
flexibility for military intervention outside the scope of Security Council approval.
But the text on which we have found consensus does reflect the shared views of all
Commissioners as to what is politically achievable in the world as we know it today. We
want no more Rwandas, and we believe that the adoption of the proposals in our report is
the best way of ensuring that. We share a belief that it is critical to move the international
consensus forward, and we know that we cannot begin to achieve that if we cannot find
consensus among ourselves. We simply hope that what we have achieved can now be
mirrored in the wider international community.
The Report and the Events of 11 September 2001
The Commission’s report was largely completed before the appalling attacks of
11 September 2001 on New York and Washington DC, and was not conceived as addressing
the kind of challenge posed by such attacks. Our report has aimed at providing precise
guidance for states faced with human protection claims in other states; it has not been
framed to guide the policy of states when faced with attack on their own nationals, or the
nationals of other states residing within their borders.
The two situations in our judgement are fundamentally different. The framework the
Commission, after consultations around the world, has developed to address the first case
(coping with human protection claims in other states) must not be confused with the
framework necessary to deal with the second (responding to terrorist attacks in one’s own
state). Not the least of the differences is that in the latter case the UN Charter provides much
more explicit authority for a military response than in the case of intervention for human
protection purposes: Article 51 acknowledges “the inherent right of individual or collective
self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations”, though
requiring that the measures taken be immediately reported to the Security Council. In
Resolutions 1368 and 1373, passed unanimously in the aftermath of the September attacks,
the Security Council left no doubt as to the scope of measures that states could and should
take in response.
Foreword IX
While for the reasons stated we have not – except in passing – addressed in the body of
our report the issues raised by the 11 September attacks, there are aspects of our report which
do have some relevance to the issues with which the international community has been
grappling in the aftermath of those attacks. In particular, the precautionary principles
outlined in our report do seem to be relevant to military operations, both multilateral and
unilateral, against the scourge of terrorism. We have no difficulty in principle with focused
military action being taken against international terrorists and those who harbour them. But
military power should always be exercised in a principled way, and the principles of right
intention, last resort, proportional means and reasonable prospects outlined in our report
are, on the face of it, all applicable to such action.
Acknowledgements
The research and consultations on which the Commission report is based, and the way in
which we went about our task, are described in detail in the accompanying supplementary
volume, titled “Research, Bibliography, Background”. We are indebted to former Canadian
Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, who initiated the Commission and chaired our
Advisory Board, and to his successor John Manley who carried it through; to our Canadian
support team, headed by Jill Sinclair and Heidi Hulan, for their boundless enthusiasm and
energy; and to our research team, headed by Thomas Weiss and Stanlake Samkange, for their
dedication and wise counsel. Our work has also benefited profoundly from that of many
others who have researched and published on the many different issues on which this report
touches, and we acknowledge that contribution more fully in the supplementary volume.
We have not tried to reproduce in our report work which has been well and fully done
elsewhere – for example on the subject of prevention or operational issues – but we are
profoundly conscious of the many debts we owe.
We particularly want to emphasize the benefit we derived from the series of lengthy
roundtable discussions we conducted in Beijing, Cairo, Geneva, London, Maputo, New
Delhi, New York, Ottawa, Paris, St Petersburg, Santiago and Washington. The meetings
involved representatives from governments and inter-governmental organizations, from
non-governmental organizations and civil society, and from universities, research institutes
and think tanks – in all, over 200 people. These roundtable meetings proved to be a
wonderfully rich source of information, ideas and diverse political perspectives, and an
excellent real world environment in which the Commission could test its own ideas as they
evolved. If we have in our report succeeded in breaking new ground, finding new and
constructive ways to tackle the long-standing policy dilemmas associated with intervention
for human protection purposes, there are a great many others who can justly claim a share
of that success.
GARETH EVANS
MOHAMED SAHNOUN
Co-Chairs
30 September 2001